At yesterday's Second Wind Showcase, PandaBee from Leipzig revealed their mining game Beards Go Underground, a potential deckbuilding smash hit from Germany. We talked to studio co-founder Julien Schillinger about the game idea, making mining feel smooth, and deckbuilding inspirations.
GamesMarkt: What were the idea and inspirations behind Beards Go Underground?
Schillinger: While I keep saying, that the game is basically Pokémon Diamond Mining meets Slay the Spire, that's actually not its origin. Originally it was a gamejam creation called "Bubble Goes BOOM!" which we made during Global Game Jam 2025. We decided bubble wrap would be our thing to fulfill the topic "Bubble" and we concepted a game where you would strategically pop bubble wrap. Initially we weren't fully sold on the idea but part of that was that we were not big fans of the topic to be honest!
